


Quintessential

by Krystalicekitsu



Category: White Collar
Genre: Community: kissbingo, Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-29
Updated: 2010-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystalicekitsu/pseuds/Krystalicekitsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal learns to dodge a punch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quintessential

**Author's Note:**

> for my [](http://kissbingo.livejournal.com/profile)[**kissbingo**](http://kissbingo.livejournal.com/) [card](http://krystalicekitsu.livejournal.com/99198.html#cutid1) for the square marked ' _emotion: happiness_ '. Interestingly- I sat down to work on SPN fic and this spilled out instead.

"This is getting ridiculous," Peter says one day. And, it sort of is, Neal agrees.

Because he can handle the guns and explosions and getting shot at once in a while. If someone else's life is at stake. If he's nowhere near the thick of it and there's something high with a safe landing/escape route he can jump from.

Neal doesn't often think about dodging a punch.

(He isn't Keller. Doesn't talk with his fists and a gun, with his mind cast in second place.)

But the guys he associates with now (or 'interacts' with, because Peter won't let him 'associate' with much of anyone anymore, certainly not with the types of people that they're ~~playing~~ investigating) don't all have his personal distaste for violence.

Some don't mind it.

Some use it.

Some really _enjoy_ cold-cocking a guy and then pinning him using some freakishly complicated Eastern-European type of move that jerks at shoulders and strains his back in a painful bow.

So, Peter tells him that enough is enough and drags him back to the office to fill out a statement on the op after all is secure. And then drags him down three floors to a small gym.

Neal tries to ignore the stale smell of sweat and the curious looks (because neither of them look like they should be doing anything but selling stock or, in Peter's case, shopping for a better suit).

Peter drags him along further, a smaller gym-type place with a padded floor and walls lined with chalk on little wooden stands. He strips his jacket and his tie and rolls up his sleeves and Neal has matched him move for move before he knows what he's doing (he's pretending Peter's smirk doesn't exist).

And then he's out in the center of a wrestling mat, trying to hold his own against one of the top of his class at Quantico and having a sudden and hard (" _Ow. That hurts, Peter._ ") change of thought for physical activities that might include a tiny bit of violence because Peter has done that thing that Some People enjoy using against a guy.

Only, with Peter, it's graceful and smooth. Not panicked. Precision and he'd say 'poetry in motion' if it didn't sound so clichéd.

And while he's a little embarrassed, it's more to do with the stirring he feels at the heat of Peter pressed so close rather than at being flipped and tossed like diner pancakes.

He gets swept off his feet (not a pun and dear _god_ the floor isn't padded _nearly_ enough for this), pinned, held and turned about. He gets Peter's hands at his wrists and his waist, his hips and knees. Curving over his shoulder and under his arms. Legs banded across his chest.

An hour of losing and he collapses to the floor the moment he manages to twist Peter's moves back on him. It might've just been a simple arm lock, but he's happy and exhausted and ~~just a little turned on~~ ready for the day to be over so he can have a nice wine.

Something white and light.

But Peter's standing above him with a proud little smile that Neal's seen a few rare times. The sort of smile that makes him want to bounce because he did something _right_ (in the way that has El forever teasing them about a daddy-kink).

It bubbles out of him in a fierce, unguarded grin and he licks his lips and tugs on the hem of Peter's pants until he fully collapses to his knees and Neal can reach up further.

Happiness in that way. Light and pleased, proud in crazy-making ways. That quintessential happiness that starts in his toes (twisting and turning) and pools in his sternum (expanding like a balloon or- no! a dirigible), gives him goose bumps up the back of his neck and sets the skin on his scalp tingling. Works its way through him til he's crinkling his nose and his eyes are small slivers of pleased light (he knows because Peter's done this, started all this, in front of highly polished glass once).

He'd look about a decade and a half younger, he knows, if he were looking in a mirror.

When he watches Peter's smile become an energetic grin (but it's his eyes you have to watch. They dance and sparkle and _that's_ Peter's tell, because he laughs with his eyes, never learned how not to) he tugs at the loose edge of Peter's shirt tails until all balance goes out the window. Til he has Peter braced over him and reasonably close (he could be closer. Peter can _always_ be closer), but _definitely_ close enough to kiss, tongue wild and sloppy and perhaps too short because Neal can't stop smiling, and Peter grins when Neal does.

  



End file.
